<<Print>>The Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) are investigating a charge of assault levelled against eight soldiers by land developers at Apollonia, near Tema.
The acting Director of Public Relations at the GAF, Lt Col Aggrey-Quashie, who confirmed the investigations to the Daily Graphic, said the case had been brought to the notice of the GAF. Suspects abandoned in the bush The group of armed soldiers who went guarding lands at Apollonia last week ended up beating up some landowners and ‘arresting’ two of them, only to abandon them in the bush.
The soldiers, numbering four, last Saturday beat up Edinam Torku, the proprietor of Shelter Matrix, a blocks moulding company, and one of his employees, identified only as Wakaso, for allegedly trespassing on a piece of land. The assault left Torku with cuts in the mouth and on the lips. “They beat us and pushed us into their car and took off.
They continued beating us in the car until we got to the bush near Apollonia Village, where they stopped, abandoned us and told us to find our way back home.
It was a Good Samaritan who gave us a lift to the EMEF Police Station,” Torku recounted. A third victim of Saturday’s assault, Mr Bless Yevuyibor, said he was hit with the butt of a gun, leaving him with a cut on his knee. Operation They reported the matter to the EMEF Police Station, which issued them with medical forms to seek medical attention.
Torku and Yevuyibor visited the Michel Camp Hospital, where they were treated and discharged. They reported back to the police station with copies of their medical reports and were asked to report again yesterday to assist in police investigations.
The soldiers had arrived at the site about 9 a.m. in a Toyota double cabin pick-up, with registration number GN 8432-11, and ordered workers at the block manufacturing firm to stop work and never to return to the land.
They also allegedly ordered the workers to destroy all the blocks they had moulded and pack their tools – shovels and wheelbarrows – into the vehicle.
Torku said when he asked the soldiers on what authority they sought to eject him and his workers, the soldiers got offended.
But he instructed his workers not to destroy anything but let the soldiers do whatever they wanted by themselves.
“They started beating me and pushed us into the car,” he said.
Another victim
It was not the first time the soldiers had visited developers in the area and brutalised them, they said.
On Wednesday, August 5, the four soldiers, in the company of four others, led by one WO1 Otu, are said to have gone on the same mission to warn the landowners against developing their plots and met Mr Edinam Kwawukume, also a developer.
That time they had arrived in two vehicles, the Toyota pick-up and a GAF vehicle, with registration number 44 GA 12.
When Mr Kwawukume challenged their actions and asked them to report to the police if they thought someone had stolen their land, they took offence and beat him up before driving away, according to reports.